This is an extremely dangerous position to take. You are literally willing to vote Hitler into office rather than a progressive?
Is it though?
"we will vote Republican until the Dems come more to the center, no matter how horrible the Republicans candidate is."
No matter how horrible.
We came within a hair of a fascist takeover of the US in 2021. That threat is now stronger than it has ever been.
Even if it escalated past that point (i.e. Trump messing around) there wasn't key buy-in from several necessary parties. How in the world was it "close"?
How in the world was it close? You answered the question yourself: all that was missing was key buy-in from several necessary parties. Namely: Pence, several low-level elections clerks, and several secretaries of state. Republicans have been working to replace these individuals with insurrectionist since 2020, and to also change laws where they were thwarted before (see the Georgia GOP's new ability to completely take over and throw out independent county elections where they don't like the results.)
The plan would have most certainly worked if Pence had left the Capitol on Jan 6. Grassley would have taken over Pence's duties, and he would have refused to certify the election. At that point, the vote would have eventually ended up at the House, with one vote allocated per state delegation. With Republicans in the majority of delegations, they would have installed Trump as president against the will of the people, thereby ending 200+ years of American democracy.
The plan was very complex, it was thought of by very smart and powerful people, it was executed with the explicit intention of ending democracy in America by people at the highest level of government, and thankfully it ultimately failed. Yet, it almost succeeded and we must take note that they only had 2 months to prepare. Next time they will have had 4 years. So please, for the love of country, watch every second of the 1/6 committee hearings. Please.
Even if the vote was delayed the legal system isn't an ethereum smart contract. Congress and presumably the supreme court would get involved to reverse the decision, or worse, have something similar to a civil war.
At the point where 50% of the Congress is voting against democracy, and the people are assaulting the Capitol, it strikes me as naive to expect institutions like scotus to save us at long last.
If you value American democracy, 2024 is the last stand. Sorry you feel this perspective is breathless, but also you don’t seem to have a grasp of the severity of what happened. Which is why I’m imploring you to watch.
Even then, what occurs four years later? Or even a few months later? He wouldn't have enough leverage to translate that into continued (real) power.
I'll guess we'll see what happens in a few years.
The plan was to use the delay to kick the process into something favorable for Republicans, and to use fraudulent slates of electors to do so.
A certified presidential election has no review for good reason. The certification is in fact the election review process. All grievances are supposed to be settled by the Congress at that time. SCOTUS has no say over this process because if they did, that would take power away from the Congress, which would be unconstitutional.
As to what happens after that? See Hungary. See Russia. See any other country that has transitioned from democracy to autocracy. Elections will be held, it the results will be known ahead of time.
> I'll guess we'll see what happens in a few years.
No, the time to shape what happens in 2024 is now. This is why I am imploring you to pay close attention to the hearings. Action in 2024 will be too late.
January 6th was terrible but it was in no way anywhere close to being a real threat to democracy. To insist that it was is delusional.
If you want, I’ll be your pen pal during the 1/6 hearings. I’d like to hear your thoughts about the evidence presented, and if that changes your feelings about 1/6. Let me know I’ll give you my email.
I implore you to watch the hearings because you are using very strong language like “delusional” and "deranged", yet you don’t seem to be up to date on the facts relating to 1/6; you are under the impression that the totality of the coup attempt was seizing the Capitol building. That is not true. The 1/6 hearings will tell you exactly how they would have succeeded, and it’s far more insidious than an insurrection.
You are right it would take far more than occupying a building. It would take a conspiracy between state legislatures, state secretaries of state, paramilitary groups, the DOJ, the DOD, and it would have to reach as high as the White House and POTUS. Unfortunately for the USA, that's just what happened here.
(Just to head off an anticipated response, yes I understand the connotation of a conspiracy theory, but conspiracies happen and when they do they are hard to keep quiet if they are far ranging, as I'm alleging this conspiracy was. The coup plot has not been kept quiet, which is how I'm able to assert these points before the 1/6 committee has held their hearings. Everything I said has been reported already. I mean, just watch recently indicted Peter Navarro explain the whole plot live on national TV. They even had a codename for their plot: "The Green Bay Sweep").
But don’t take my word for it, the 1/6 committee will prove all of this in the coming weeks. All I’m saying is watch the hearings today and through June. You owe it to your country if you value democracy.
Please cite any substantive sources about it being "proven to be fake". That's a Fox News line, not an argument. None of it was proven fake. At all.
I watched the hearing, I mostly agree with you except for this part. It seems to me there were a confluence of factors colliding. The plan was not thought of by very smart and powerful people, it was a cockamamie legal spiel on the fringe cooked up by one law prof. The former president, true to his method of decision making, said essentially, Yeah, let's go with that, why not?
Meanwhile, there exists pockets of hard right militias, members of which have para-social relationship with Mr. Trump's twitter feed. They thought he was asking, ordering, them to come to the Capitol. It was "planned" like, "she was definitely winking at me, she wants me to ask her to the prom".
I keep in perspective a sense of skepticism, this is a trial with no advocate for the other side. Mr. Trump cannot be at the same time a clownish buffoon as well as an evil genius. But, the opportunity makes the man.